1. Field
The field of the present invention is tare sampling apparatus and more particularly such apparatus adapted for sampling a moving stream of beets.
2. State of the Art
The large scale growing, harvesting and processing of sugar beets prompted the early design and manufacture of automatic beet handling apparatus called pilers wherein the beets were dumped or otherwise transferred from the harvesting wagons, trucks or the like onto a system of conveyor belts so as to ultimately be stored in large piles at the processing plant or the rail loading sidings. The beets typically were first elevated then cascaded through a screening device to dislodge the bulk of adhering soil and other foreign material. However, the screened beets still carry significant amounts of foreign materials which must be quantified before reimbursement of the grower. Also, the sugar content of the beets, after divestment of adhered soil, required similar measurement. Accordingly, various tare sample taking devices have been conceived and developed. From the screening portion of the piler, the beets typically free fall a short distance into another elevating conveyor, generally controlled by a gantry boom on the piler, for transport up onto the storage pile. Initially, the sample bucket was manually inserted into the stream of falling beets to be filled and withdrawn. However, it was not long until various mechanical devices developed for this purpose. Perhaps the simplest of these was a bucket held on the end of a pivoting arm which was rotated by crank means to insert the bucket into and withdraw it from the stream. Powered devices basically inserting the bucket through swinging it in complete or partial circles became common. Sometimes these devices also included provisions for elevating the sample to a higher level where the sample was transferred to a tare house actually built as part of the piler. More recently, this utilization of the tare house has become less prevalent, the beets being transported as necessary to the closest testing laboratory, wherein both the foreign material and the sugar content is determined. Examples of powered beet sampling machines are found in U.S. Pat. No. 2,650,498 to Armer (the tare bucket swinging through a near vertical plane briefly into the edge of the stream of beets and then being rotated away and elevated by a complicated combination of gearing and linkages), No. 2,600,329 to Romine et al (the tare bucket pivoted through approximately 180.degree. so as to enter the beet stream and reversely withdraw therefrom), No. 3,358,512 to J.W. Silver et al (the tare bucket powered to make full circular swings in a horizontal plane to pass through a portion of the stream of beets) and No. 3,373,615 to J.M. Silver et al (tare bucket path requires little clearance for filling, but the bucket swings wide to reach dumping position). Almost all of these prior art devices share the disadvantage of requiring considerable horizontal space in which to accommodate the moving bucket and its support arm. Accordingly, the bucket in most of these apparatus may not fully penetrate or traverse the stream of beets, so that the sample taken may not be accurately representative. This is especially true in more advanced piler designs, which often involve a larger and wider stream of beets. Therefore, there remains a need for a beet tare sample taking apparatus wherein the bucket moves continuously without reversal through the stream of beets, and wherein the installation space requirement is minimized.